Scale Weight

Weight is a tricky space to dive into but you should not let it be your be-all and end-all. Your focus should be on improving your overall health, particularly your habits around your lifestyle, movement, and eating.

Scale weight is not an accurate or complete reflection of your progress or effort - and in some cases, health - it is simply data that represents your total body weight. It can be impacted by factors other than body fat including hormones (that time of the month), digestion (what you ate within the last 72 hours), time of day (am versus pm), hydration (pre-and-post workout), temperature, and more! These factors are the reason why you should not get to caught up on the scale number as your overall body composition and health markers can significantly change without much or any change to the scale


Your body composition is composed of liquid (water and blood), fat mass, and lean mass - everything else in your body that is not fat mass e.g., bones, organs, and muscle mass. To help you gauge a broader sense of body composition, you will benefit from getting a body scan done i.e., Evolt 3D body scan, In-Body scan, DEXA, etc., or taking girth and/or skinfold measures. These measures will give you an idea of fat mass and lean mass, as well as other useful measures, which will be more valuable than a number on a scale. 


For example



Both examples demonstrate that scale weight is just the surface of body composition, so rather than relying on the scales, use it as data collection to monitor your desired trend i.e., are the scales going up, down, or maintaining?  


We could sit here all day and debate that weight reflects health, but it simply doesn’t. You can be heavier, lighter, or the same weight as the 20 people who walked past you, and your health status would vary. So, stop using scale weight as your clutch and focus on improving your overall body composition, health, and well-being.